Queen and ants ID, please (Greenville, SC on 7/22)

[oNiice]

Hi! I am new here, and I have some ants I would like help with identifying. There are three pictures to help with this request. One is of the ants outside of their nest. The others are of an ant and queen next to a ruler. The queen is in a pill bottle so seeing her details may be difficult, but I’m hoping the picture of the ants next to their nest is clear enough combined with the information of size for someone to ID them. For those wondering, she is only in there temporarily until I get more test tubes in later tonight. Also, as far as the queen goes, most of the queens I’ve seen are around that size but she might be a little bit on the smaller end.

From my observations, these ants make their nest in the ground or in the pavement on the side of the road.

On top of the ID request, I also have some questions if anybody is familiar with these ants. The queens that I have caught were not wandering around, but rather I was able to catch them at the nest. There are usually multiple queens that I can see when I expose the nest. Do these ants have multiple queens, or would those queens have eventually left the nest?

If those are queens that actually belong to those colonies, would I be able to also catch some ants from that colony to put in with the queen to jumpstart my ant colony?

Link to Photos: https://imgur.com/a/4VQx3hE

[Edit] Google Drive Upload: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AfRAiN12Qz58TWT4VLCjdfGKNaOaXHEo

Additional details:

These ants were seen and caught in Greenville, South Carolina between July 20-22.

The file size was too big for me to do a direct upload, and I noticed that the Imgur upload reduced the resolution a lot. If it’s too difficult to ID from the low resolution, I can do a Dropbox or Google Drive upload (or whatever is the preferred method), just let me know.

If you need more pictures or information, please just let me know. Thanks ahead for taking the time to read my post, and any information would be greatly appreciated!

[oNiice]

Additional question: I was doing some reading on species that are claustral. Not sure if this one is or not, and since this queen was taken from an existing colony, will she need a food supply?

[SYUTEO]

Camponotus castaneus. If you take a queen from an existing colony, you also need to collect the workers or she wouldn't survive. It's true for most species that are claustral.

[oNiice]

Camponotus castaneus. If you take a queen from an existing colony, you also need to collect the workers or she wouldn't survive. It's true for most species that are claustral.

Thank you for the quick reply! In most of the colonies that I have found, there does appear to be multiple queens. Is this species is OK with having multiple queens in the same colony?

[SYUTEO]

Camponotus castaneus. If you take a queen from an existing colony, you also need to collect the workers or she wouldn't survive. It's true for most species that are claustral.

Thank you for the quick reply! In most of the colonies that I have found, there does appear to be multiple queens. Is this species is OK with having multiple queens in the same colony?

Probably, but if that's the case then it might not be C. castaneus as polygyny in Camponotus is rare. But you can put them together and see.